Infinite Limits

Visible Experience

          As Calvino states, “visual images are at the source of all stories” and therefore visibility is a key component when looking closer into the overall meaning of most novels. In the work I chose, Dolly City, visibility comes up many times, and is used to imagine many of the most important and graphic scenes. Throughout Dolly City, one of Calvino’s ideas of direct imagery is used quite often. Direct imagery is an image that is supplied by culture. The cultural aspects of this novel have a lot to do with the visual images of Israel, the mother, and the son throughout the story. One example of direct imagery is during a traumatic scene that occurs as Dolly the main character is performing one of her many crazy “surgeries,” “I went home sick of my life and took it out on the bunnies. I tied their ears together; I tied one rabbit’s ear to another rabbit’s ear; I cut one ear off two rabbits and sewed them back on the wrong way round” (23). It is obvious here that the visual imagery of what Dolly is doing brings forth a visual image that is disgusting, but important because it allows the readers to image just how crazed the protagonist really is.

            The visual images in this novel start with words and end at a visual, though it may not be a pretty one, it is one that is left on the minds of the reader for the entire story and continues to provide valid reasoning for the type of character Dolly really is. Though there are many traumatic scenes throughout this story, the visual imagery that the author uses really embodies the idea of the visible that Calvino discusses. Each image makes up the entire story, and also catches the attention of the reader with its intense descriptions.